Swing low sweet chariot
Swing low sweet chariot -
at three my father sang
the words to me and soon
I sang with him, his large
basso velvet voice and my
little one merged together
echoing off the tiles at bubble
bathtime – or in our tiny living
room, wherever the mood to
sing struck him, and I his
willing duet partner de-
lighted to fill my lungs
and revel in the fill of
words in the air – the
thrum of some sort of
big feeling I could not name
in my chest
Swing low sweet chariot
Comin’ for to carry me home
A band of angels comin’ for to me
Comin’ for to carry me home
As a teen we still sang together
all sorts of show tunes ….
Carousel and Porgy and Bess –
that sort of thing and we were
in my memory quite good together
belting out in full voice
I looked over Jordan
And what did I see
Comin’ for to carry me home
A band of angels comin’ after me
We never stopped singing that song –
Though time and geography grew –
college came and I went, a too early
marriage and some years lived in the
bliss of the Virgin Islands -
Where, there, in the shower –
in the evening at sunset –alone or
later dancing with the infant son
I bore, I sang the familiar words
Swing low, sweet chariot
Somewhere I knew he was singing too
Comin’ for to carry me home
A band of angels comin’ for to me
And one hot day years later on that
forever marked, shimmered August
afternoon – sunlight pouring over
him as he lay shivering in the heat
I pulled the puffed white duvet up
to his neck, smoothed cologne in his
black hair shot, watched the sun glint
on his threaded strands of platinum –
oxygen hummed in the corner – as I
sat on his bed and sang as he whispered ….
Sweet low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home
A band of angels comin’ for to me
Comin’ for to carry me home
His eyes closed, his lips cracked
dry – but still in that quiet room –
in those last days, each time I sang,
and sang, and sang, over and over
and over again -
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin’ for to carry me home ..
Each time, I knew that from
the beginning he had taught
me, had scripted his leave-
taking, softened his ending with –
A band of angels comin’ for to me
As he was carried away with song
Oh, Pearl, that was so moving. I loved reading about your relationship with your father - all tied together by song!
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